


there's something in your eyes (and i want you to see it)

by Sigulinde



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lesbi-ann, Lesbian Character, Light Angst, Past Sexual Abuse, Persona x Dragalia got me here, nothing explicit tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sigulinde/pseuds/Sigulinde
Summary: When Shiho asks Ann to wash her hair, feelings inevitably come to light.
Relationships: Suzui Shiho/Takamaki Ann
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	there's something in your eyes (and i want you to see it)

**Author's Note:**

> CW// implied sexual assault for all the Kamoshida thing.

Ann was nervous. Terrible, absolutely nervous. Which was funny because right now she was alone, but soon she was going to be with _someone_ else in the room, and the thought of it had her heart being a mess like before fighting a final boss in a JRPG with Ryuji (who never failed to make her nervous with how bad he played sometimes). How could she be prepared for something she had never experienced before?

It had been Shiho’s idea. Ann didn’t know why she wanted to, but there had been something in her eyes when she asked Ann for this, and her girlfriend wanted to fulfill Shiho’s request. That didn’t mean that this was going to be easy though, even when it was something so casual yet so _intimate_ and- by heaven’s sake, she was _fucked._

Shiho had asked Ann to _wash her hair._

And for that reason, Ann was now there in her bathroom, waiting. If she concentrated enough, she could hear the friction of her girlfriend’s clothes as she changed, the sound almost being drowned by the drumming of her own heartbeat against her ears. They had decided to do it in swimsuits, but Ann decided to go with her black tank top above a simple swimsuit because she didn’t want Shiho to feel uncomfortable.

Maybe it was being _too_ careful, but Ann felt like that was what she would’ve wanted, where the situation be the other way around.

The door opening interrupted her thoughts. Ann gulped down her nerves and looked up: Shiho stared back at her, with a flash of courage on her eyes that hesitated a little the longer Ann held her gaze. But she kept going. Because she knew her better than she knew herself, and Shiho probably wanted her to hold her gaze. To see pride and love in Ann’s gaze (because she was sure that those were the only feelings that she could give a name to right now).

“You… ready?” Ann asked, not moving, not wanting to put pressure.

“Yeah,” Shino answered, breathing in and out, as she always did before a volleyball match that had her nervous. She looked down at her own body, and Ann dropped her gaze straight to her lap to _not_ make her feel uncomfortable. “I’m…, I’m good. Let’s do this.”

“You sure?” Ann started rambling before she realized she _had_ to talk: “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, it’s alright, yeah? We can just, uh, cuddle and watch movies or something. We can even just sleep and-“

“Ann.”

She breathed in.

“I… don’t want you to do anything you don’t _want_ to.”

“I know.” Hands covered Ann’s cheeks to make her lift her gaze. She crossed looks again with Shiho, and in her brown eyes Ann saw herself, nervous and conflicted. The blonde gulped down. “That’s why I love you. But it goes both ways, yeah?” Shiho’s thumb danced through Ann’s cheeks in a silent way of reassurement. “If you don’t want to either, it’s alright too.”

“I know too.” Ann smiled, lifting a hand to hold one of Shiho’s against her cheek, turning her face to give to it a little kiss. “But I want too, so… yeah. Let’s do this. I feel like I’m about to go against a final boss or something.”

Shiho’s bursting laugh vanished almost all the nervousness that Ann was still feeling.

“Heavens, my girlfriend is such a _dork,”_ Shiho commented, leaning back and going towards the bathtub. Ann now realized what her girlfriend was wearing: hip up she was wearing a dark bra, part of her swimsuit, with short black shorts. Ever since she had been out of therapy, Shiho had started training again, and it was reflected on the wide muscles of her back and how firm her arms looked. Ann liked it, and specially, she knew that Shiho liked it too. “What, am I now part of a videogame or something, Takamaki?”

“I mean, if you want to,” Ann joked back, pretending she didn’t realize what they were going to do now. “You would have super effective attacks against me, Shiho, because I can’t help but be weak for you, baby-“

“Oh, shut up, lesbi-ann.”

Both bursted out laughing, and then there were fingers surrounding her own, and Ann couldn’t decipher why that made her heart go so _fast_ against her chest as if she were close to heaven, and she forgot where they were until there was _water_ surrounding her legs.

And then, suddenly, they were both sitting on her bathtub, surrounded by warm water, and even so Ann shivered because this was real, right? This was happening. And she felt like her heart wanted to jump from her chest straight into Shiho’s hand as she stared at her, in an oblivion state of enchantment. She loved her. So, so much. And she was so scared of _messing this up._

Shiho turned around, and Ann forced herself to react when a knee impacted against her leg, taking a nervous laugh out of her girlfriend. Ann smiled, focusing on the task at hand, and soon they were facing each other with water up to Ann’s belly button, and Shiho stared at her eyes as if wanting to see herself, and only her eyes had Ann’s breathing turning into a mess.

“Doing good? Your cheeks are red.”

“Yeah, good.” Ann smiled to not reveal her nerves. “It’s the warmth.”

Shiho arched her eyebrows, but didn’t comment on it. “Good.”

They stared at each other.

“So…,” Ann cleared her throat, “what do we… do now?” Shiho breathed in, and it made Ann realize all of sudden that if she was nervous, her girlfriend probably was a mess inside. Her eyes dashed with a glimpse of something akin to bad memories, and it sent a wave of guilt through Ann. “We can still go back and forget about this.”

“We’re both soaking right now. We would have damped our swimsuit for nothing.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Ann answered, smiling softly. “Tumble dryers exist.”

Shiho hummed, but said nothing else in a while. Ann waited, heart and soul in awe as if a goddess were about to talk to her.

“Can I…” said her girlfriend then, slowly, not holding Ann’s gaze, “give you a hug?”

Ann’s arms were open before she could even thing about an answer.

And then her girlfriend was cuddling against her neck, hand surrounding Ann’s hips underwater and black hair tickling under her jaw, and the emotion that took over her was nothing far from _heaven_. Ann surrounded her girlfriend’s body, shielding her with her own as much as she could (being quite grateful that she was, still, taller than her) but rested her fingers over her own skin, not wanting to trespass on… whatever wall there was there. She could feel it.

Shiho dropped a kiss right where her pulse passed on her neck, and Ann wondered if she could feel Ann’s love for her on the way her heartbeat accelerated.

“Are you… okay?” she asked, then, because there was this _something_ in the air waiting to be addressed, and she confirmed it when Shiho didn’t answer right away.

“My new school is… opening school clubs soon.”

A pause. Anne rested her cheek above her black hair.

“And there’s a volleyball team.”

Oh.

“Do… you want to join?”

“If I want?” Shiho laughed against Ann’s collarbone, a stifled laugh against her skin that didn’t feel so happy as it should probably be. “Yes. I… miss playing. It was fun, you know? I didn’t like most of the girls in Shujin, but when we were practicing it felt ike we… weren’t that different. That maybe we could hang around.”

“But…?”

“But I can’t stop thinking about _him.”_

Ann breathed in. She moved before talking, so her voice would come controlled and not trembling: she held Shiho a little closer, turning her face so her lips were against her girlfriend’s temple. She was there, with Anne, not with the other…, the other piece of _shit._ And Shiho was _alive._ After everything that had happened, she was still there. And on her worst nights, that tended to be comfort enough: that if she were to send a message to her girlfriend, she would answer.

With that in mind, she said: “I… understand.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No, it isn’t.” A pause. Ann collected her thoughts. “But it’s okay to think that. Or to be mad, or sad.”

“But…,” Shiho breathed in. Ann knew it was because she didn’t want to break down, to give _him_ the pleasure, wherever he was, to still have control on her. Ann felt something akin to pride surrounding her heart. “I don’t… want to. I hate him, but I don’t- I-.” Shiho leaned back to stare at Ann’s eyes, now her turn to collect her thoughts. “I don’t want him to take this from us.”

Ann stared at her girlfriend, in awe, and though through a heartbeat: _She’s brave, isn’t she?_

She didn’t know who leaned for a kiss first, but they were kissing now, and Shiho’s fingers were curling now against her hair, leaving it free from her pigtails, and Ann was still hugging her. And she realized that there was a sob caught on her throat because oh god, even after everything she was _there._ And maybe Ann was never going to be able to tell her about everything, about the Phantom Thieves, about the Panther she was, but Ann did could tell Shiho that she loved her. That she meant everything to her.

When they broke apart, Ann rested her forehead against Shiho’s, and now allowed her hands to rest on her back, feeling her warmth under her, warmer than the water (that was slowly losing its high temperature, Ann would have to check that in if Shiho still wanted her to wash her hair).

“You’re… not mad? About what happened?”

“Sometimes,” Ann answered. “When… I think about it. Mad with him, and… maybe with myself, a little. But you’re with me now. I’m not allowing that trash to take that from me ever again.”

Shiho laughed, softly.

“I don’t remember you saying his name lately.”

“I’m not giving that animal the pleasure.”

Shiho’s fingers went from Ann’s neck towards her cheeks.

“Why are you… mad about yourself?” Ann took air to answer, but Shiho talked again first: “Wait, no. Let me rephrase that.” She stared right into her girlfriend’s eyes. “You… know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

“I do.”

“Hm.” Shiho hummed, and slowly, a smile cracked through her lips. “It’s… weird. We both know it wasn’t our fault, and yet… here we are. How long has it been?”

Good question. Ann wasn’t sure of the answer: maybe a year or something, back to when she was alone with Shiho, when both were suffering from an unencryptable chain and when ‘Phantom Thieves’ meant nothing. But things were different now. And they were there, together. And Ann preferred to believe that that _did_ mean something.

“I don’t know.” A low laugh escaped through Ann’s lips. “However, I do know that we’re hurting… but we’re not broken. I take solace on that.”

That took Shiho by surprise: her gaze stared right at her; eyes dilated as she processed Ann’s words. She held her gaze because Ann didn’t know what she would if they were to break apart. Right now. Anytime. She wanted to look at Shiho’s sparking, strong eyes for the rest of her life, and for her to see herself in Ann’s eyes for as long as she felt right.

Shiho smiled, then, after a pause that felt eternal.

“If that’s the case,” and she leaned back, reaching out for a shampoo bottle before looking again at Ann. Hope made her eyes look clearer than ever, “I’m glad that it’s you who can heal with me.”

Ann smiled before she realized that the warm _something_ on her chest was happiness.

She lifted a hand to take the shampoo from her hands, and when Shiho turned her back on her, Ann turned off her mind to focus on the task at hand: shampoo dampening her fingers, and determination boosting her movements, she started washing her girlfriend’s hair. Rubbing her fingers through Shiho’s hair, she took care of every bunch, massaging her girlfriend’s head. Trying to tell her “I love you” and “You’re safe” with every move.

Shiho leaned against her touch, resting her weigh above Ann’s chest wit a content sigh escaping through her lips, and Ann’s heart beat happy and grateful for the circumstances in which they were now. Her girlfriend had changed, and so had she, but there, in a bathroom with damped clothes, shampoo on her fingers and Shiho resting against her chest with something similar to _hope_ surrounding them, Ann decided that she was happy.

And that now, maybe, the future had better things in store for Shiho and her.

Life would change, of that Ann was sure. And it was now their turn to live.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so, I haven't played P5, but I do play Dragalia Lost and we recently got the crossover. I read the story of the game to know some things, watched gameplays and all, and lord do I love Ann already?? I loved her story and character, and I wanted to try my luck at writing something about her and Shiho. Hope y'all liked it!! Stay safe, and have a nice weekend.


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